Friday, September 15, 2006

Google "Music Maps" Mashups

+=Music Maps!

There's a new trend in the Google Maps 'mashup-o-sphere' that is sees music coming together with maps. This ranges from plotting the locations of where live music can be found (live bands, concerts), where musicians reside, and even mapping real places from song lyrics! Discovering music is getting easier with these new Google Maps mashups. Here are some examples of this concept played out in a series of new "Music Maps":

Music. Located - Pedro Ferrera is in the process of creating MusicLocated, a new website that exploits this new concept of finding music and musicians on a map. Using Google Maps he maps independent musicians worldwide and lets you sample music from each one.. everything from Ukrainian folk to Crystalline Jazz Guitar. It makes for a unique world music sampling experience. Pedro is just getting started so drop him a line with your thoughts.

DJ Vitalic is now on "the map" - A good friend of mine recently characterized DJ Vitalic as a "dirty dude".. "a really sick industrial-deep/house DJ". Fred from Vitalic's official website Vitalic Club informs me that he is now integrating Maps and Earth to show where Vitalic is playing shows around the world. Check out this Google Map and select a date and world location. See the Google Earth link at the bottom of the map. (This is something every DJ should be doing!)

"Tragically Hip" song lyrics on Google Earth - Check out this blog post from Frank Taylor at the Google Earth blog which describes a file that can be opened in Google Earth displaying locations from Tragically Hip songs. Very cool.

Sydney Band Map - A list of music stores, resources, rehearsal and recording studios, amp and effect builders in Sydney with links to Google Maps viewing. [via]

Italian Music Map: Rockit.it - Giulio Pons of Italy is the founder of Rockit.it, an Italian web site that deals with music. He is plotting "interesting points" about music in Italy: pubs, festivals, music labels, shops, booking agencies, etc. He has geo-referenced those points and has made it available through a KML-feed for Google Earth. Here is an article that explains if further (Italian language) No use of Google Maps in this one, but is relevant with Google's other geo browser, Google Earth. Related: Italy Google Maps mashup roundup